Thursday, August 26, 2010

Nationally Published!

OK, so it has been a while since I posted, but life has been craaaaaa-zy this month. Things should settle down a bit around September 1st. I should be moved out of the apartment by then, and have a bit more free time to write.

Let me just point out, however, that I was published this month in AOPA Pilot, a magazine read nationally by around 400,000 active pilots each month. The website is read by many more people from many countries. Here is the link to the article online:

http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2010/september/technique.html

And here is what I had to say about landing an airplane...

No tunnel vision

“Don’t lock in to a spot on the runway. You have to look up and down it, use the far end as a horizon, and keep the nose just above that line. Let your eyes take in the side of the runway, and even the grass. The point is to not get tunnel vision, but let your peripheral vision work for you, too. [This] cleaned up my landings quite a bit.

“Remember to reduce final approach speed if below gross weight. Why use 1.3 [times] book VSO [stall speed in the landing configuration], when the airplane actually will stall much slower than that lightly loaded? I found that after learning to reduce all my speeds, especially final approach speed, my flying became much more stable, predictable, and landings are wonderful. In a game of energy management, it helps to actually do it.” —Matt Caldwell, Huntington, West Virginia

Because many things have changed in my life, the format here will do the same. First - no promises of regular updates, I'll write when I have something to write about. Second - I have changed the name, since I'm not really instructing professionally any more. This is the blog formerly known as "My Life As A Flight Instructor."